Impressions, Ideas, and the Psychological Laws of Association

Name
Course
Instructor
Date
Impressions, Ideas and the Psychological Laws of Association
Hume suggests the experiences of a human being play a huge role in forming perceptions and ideas of the world. Depending on the experiences that an individual has in the cause of their lives, there are three ways in which they are likely to make associations. Hume summarized these three ways into the three laws of psychological association. The following is a description of how impressions and ideas are related to the psychological laws of association. When ideas or impressions closely look like one another, the human mind is highly likely to associate them (Martin, 870). This premise is the tenet upon which the first law of psychological association is formed. Secondly, whenever ideas or impressions are experienced in relatively the same duration of time, there is a high likelihood of forming associations. Thirdly, when the existence of an idea likely leads to another idea, the human mind is likely to draw a nexus between those two ideas.
Matters of Facts and Relations of Ideas
Hume suggests that our experiences of the world play a significant role in shaping the kind of knowledge that we have as humans. According to Hume, a matter of facts refers to those statements of truth that require some form of verification. For us to believe a matter of fact with certainty, there must be some form of verification, such as experimentation or observation (Demeter, 260). An example would be saying that the sun will rise tomorrow. While this statement appears true, it needs to be verified. We should wait for tomorrow to come and observe whether the sun will rise. On the other hand, relations of ideas are those aspects which ar...